Defense secretary on board with keeping JBER unit

Now even the Secretary of Defense says he’d reverse the plan to cut several thousand troops from Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, nearly ensuring the Anchorage base will retain 4-25 Infantry Brigade Combat team, the only airborne unit of its kind in Pacific, at least for another year.

Defense Secretary Ashton Carter told Sen. Dan Sullivan today Alaska hosts “forces that are so critical to so many scenarios.”

“With respect to the 4-25, I looked into that after our conversation,” Carter said at a hearing of the Senate Armed Service Committee. “I’ve spoken to General Milley. If he makes that recommendation to me, I want you to know I’m going to approve that. I think that that is an important part of our force posture in the Pacific, and I appreciate your calling my attention to it.”

Gen. Mark Milley , the Army chief of staff, told a Senate committee last month it would be “contrary to strategic national security interests” to dismantle the 4-2-5 now. Milley said the team should be extended at least a year. But, according to Carter’s testimony today at the Senate Armed Services Committee, Milley hasn’t yet made the formal recommendation to the Defense secretary.

Liz Ruskin covers Alaska issues in Washington as the network's D.C. correspondent.
She was born in Anchorage and is a West High grad. She has degrees from the University of Washington and the University of Missouri School of Journalism in Columbia. She previously worked at the Homer News, the Anchorage Daily News and the Washington bureau of McClatchy Newspapers. She also freelanced for several years from the U.K. and Japan, in print and radio. Liz has been APRN’s Washington, D.C. correspondent since October 2013. She welcomes your news tips at lruskin (at) alaskapublic (dot) org | About Liz